82 



THE KNTOMOLOGIST S UKCOIiO. 



of men collect with no intention of study, but merely to make a 

 collection, which can, at some future time, be converted into cash. 

 This led up naturally to the assumption that the large money value of 

 purely British insects was the real basis of the evil of over-collecting. 

 If rare British insects had a value in agreement with that of 

 Continental specnnens of the same species, it was clear that the 

 professional collector would become a general collector of material for 

 scientific study, instead of the exterminator of comparatively rare or 

 local species, to fill up gaps in collections, whilst the amateur- 

 professional, knowing that his collection had only a general value, 

 and that no particular species had an unreasonable intrinsic value, 

 would cease to persecute such insects as, at present, have a high 

 money value, to the verge of extinction, 



Mr. McLachlan opened the discussion, and pointed out that 

 Cfirijsophanm dispar and Noviiades sentianfiis had already undergone 

 extinction, whilst Lycaena arion, formerly a somewhat widely distributed 

 species, was slowly undergoing extermination at the hands of collectors. 

 Papilio machaon would undoubtedly liave long ago become extinct biit 

 for the inaccessibility of some of its haunts. He considered that the 

 damage was almost entirely connnitted by amateur collectors, and 

 thought that certain species should not be collected at all for some 

 years. He stated that one of the objects he had in view in bringing 

 this matter forward was to see whether some plan could not be devised 

 to protect those narrowly localized species which were apparently in 

 danger of being exterminated by over-collecting. 



Mr. Goss instanced how Slelitaea cvu-ia and Li/caeua arion had 

 largely been exterminated, the former in its Isle of Wight localities, 

 the latter in Gloucestershire. He complained bitterly of the damage 

 done to L. arion, last season, by Major Still and a North London 

 collector. He would like to draw up a Bill to prevent all collectors 

 capturing these species for a time. He further stated that Vapilio 

 machaon, although apparently doomed to extinction in its chief locality 

 in Cambridgeshire (Wicken Fen), would probably linger on in the 

 county in smaller fens, such as Chippenham, where the larvre had 

 been found feeding on Angelica si/lrtatris. It would certainly survive 

 in the Norfolk Broads, both from the irreclaimable nature of the fens 

 there, and the extensive range of the species in the district, which 

 Mr. Goss said he had explored in 1887 in boats. 



Professor Meldola knew little of British collecting, but thought that 

 schoolboys should be led rather to make observations on the habits of 

 the living insects, than to capture and kill them for no specific pur- 

 pose whatever. 



Capt. Elwes thought that legislation in this direction would be some- 

 what difficult. He did not think that schoolboys destroyed many species. 

 He considered that the bad seasons, which had been so detrimental to 

 farming, had also been injurious to insect life, and that many insects 

 disappeared from meteorological causes. 



Colonel Irby said that 7>. arin)i had disappeared many years ago, 

 not only from BarnAvell Wold, Northamptonshire, but from another 

 part of the county on the estate of Lord Lilford, not accessible to the 

 public, and that its disappearance there was no doubt caused by the 

 destruction of the food-plant and other herbage by burning the pasture, 

 and by the grazing of shee^). 



